Law enforcement makes overdose saves

Law enforcement in most Kitsap County agencies have begun carrying Narcan, enabling them to provide a lifesaving antidote to someone who has overdosed from an opioid.(Photo: Meegan M. Reid / Kitsap Sun)Buy Photo

SILVERDALE — At dawn one morning in July, a young woman overdosed on heroin outside a Silverdale Way convenience store.

In a stroke of luck, Kitsap County Sheriff's Deputy Jason Hedstrom was stopped at a traffic signal a few hundred feet away with an overdose-reversing medication stashed in his CPR kit. When a request for aid was broadcast, Hedstrom pulled into the Ampm parking lot and found the 31-year-old woman unconscious in the front seat of a Honda Accord.

The woman couldn't be roused. Her breathing was slow and labored, and her lips were turning blue.

"She was barely breathing when I got to her," Hedstrom recalled.

Hedstrom sprayed a dose of Narcan, a medication used to counteract the effects of opioid overdose, into one of the woman's nostrils and performed CPR until medics arrived. The woman was revived and taken to a hospital for treatment.

The incident was one of five cases last year in which officers were able to help overdose victims after being equipped with Narcan as part of a countywide initiative to prevent deaths from opioid drugs such as heroin. Carrying Narcan (generically called naloxone) has the added benefit of protecting officers from accidental contact with drugs like Fentanyl, which can be deadly in minute doses.

Kitsap County Sheriff's Lt. Jon VanGesen, who coordinated the Narcan project, said the effort has already proven successful.

"If it saves one life I think it's working great," VanGesen said. To have five interventions in one year, "that's huge."

The number of deaths involving accidental heroin overdose jumped in the county after 2010. One heroin-related death was reported in Kitsap each year from 2004 to 2010. From 2011 through 2016, the county averaged seven heroin deaths per year (statistics for 2017 were not yet available).

Public health officials see equipping law enforcement with Narcan as one strategy to prevent overdose deaths and to give people struggling with opioid dependence the opportunity to seek treatment. Because they patrol across the county, police officers and sheriff's deputies are frequently the first to arrive at scenes involving drug overdose and can safely administer the Narcan with an easy-to-use nasal spray.

"Reducing the time between the onset of overdose symptoms and effective intervention is a matter of life and death," Kitsap Public Health District Health Officer Dr. Susan Turner said in a statement. "Given that law enforcement officers are often first at the scene of an overdose, their use of naloxone can help reduce the number of overdose deaths in our community.

Suquamish Police began carrying naloxone in 2015. Other Kitsap law enforcement agencies were trained and equipped to use Narcan spray in early 2017, with funding from the federal High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program. The medication is now deployed by every department in the county, with the exception of Port Orchard Police.

"It's nice to have this tool available to us and take a proactive step in helping the person recover, and get them out of this danger area," said Bremerton Police Sgt. Billy Renfro, who supervises the department's drug unit.

Renfro put his Narcan kit to use shortly after being equipped last year. In May, he was called to a home on Houston Avenue where a 22-year-old man was suffering from an apparent heroin overdose.

"I happened to be out driving and was within a couple of blocks," Renfro said.

A bystander with medical training had already given the man a dose of naloxone when the sergeant arrived. Renfro administered two more doses of Narcan before the man came to.

In addition to the incidents Renfro and Hedstrom responded to, there were three other cases in which Kitsap law enforcement officers used Narcan to help victims of overdose.

In June, Bremerton Police Officer Jen Corn administered Narcan to a 49-year-old woman who was found not breathing on Warren Avenue. In October, Kitsap County Sheriff's Deputy Chad Miller provided a Narcan kit to Central Kitsap Fire & Rescue personnel who were tending to a 33-year-old patient outside the Silverdale Way Money Tree.

And in December, deputies Chris Mano and Jeff Rogers responded to a call of an assault with a firearm in Olalla and found a 30-year-old man at the scene showing signs of an opioid overdose. The deputies administered two doses of Narcan before South Kitsap Fire & Rescue medics took over treatment. In each case, the victims regained consciousness.

About 160 Narcan kits have been distributed to officers across the county. Renfro keeps his in a shirt pocket.

"It's a lifesaver," he said. "You can just start adding up the lives saved."